<The reelection rate of congressional incumbents has been above 90 percent in every election of the last 26 years often reaching 96 to 98 percent. Senior incumbents (more than six years) have a reelection rate of 99 percent.

Because of the money that comes the way of an incumbent. What an excellent argument for campaign finance reform! Thank you! ;)



If you think anyone in government is going to pass a finance reform bill that does not heavily favor incumbents, then maybe you need a history lesson yourself. We had to drag our local reps kicking and screaming into term limits, and they still haven't given up the fight. The fix is in, and they like it that way.

Your commentary on European-private vs. American-government transportation development was very interesting and thought-provoking. We can see how European transportation developed under private funding. What if America had taken the same route?

While it's all water under the bridge now, one wonders how America would have developed if transportation had developed more slowly and deliberately, with profitable goals, driven by economic forces instead of political ones, as it would have had to under private financing.

The transportation problems would have been solved--the free market always works--but in different ways and at a different pace.

Would America be populated differently? Would there be more dense population centers and more wild land? I'm thinking about the government-built roads in Brazil into the rain forests. Would arcologies have become more feasible than suburbs? Would we have been able to absorb all the farmers that immigrated here, like my ancestors? Would America's borders be different without the "manifest destiny" of the government transportation push? Would more cost-effective trains now be more common than cars? Would aerial transport have been encouraged earlier? Would our economy be stronger now, or weaker, or about the same? Would there be more pollution or less?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but it would make a heck of a story.